The 54th Musicological Conference of the Polish Composers' Union, titled "Music, Memory, History", will take place at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw from 13-15 November, 2025. This event will accompany the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Polish Composers' Union. The main theme will be the diverse forms of memory about music and the transformations of the paradigm of Western European music historiography. The deadline for submission of proposals is April 30, 2025.
As Carl Dahlhaus wrote in “Foundations of Music History”: "For several decades, historians have been concerned with the decline of interest in history, and sometimes even with the threat to their institutional existence."
Dahlhaus' concerns about the state of music history nearly half a century ago are not reflected in the vast and growing dynamics of historical research today. Music history, as a confident and mature discipline, continues to serve as a solid foundation for musicology. The demand for history remains unchanged, but its empirical scope, methods, research techniques, and narratives have evolved. The exploration of non-European high cultures, folk traditions, and hunter-gatherer societies reveals different ways of thinking about the past and connecting it with the present, thus altering our approach to the history of music.
The past and present are connected by two main narrative forms, namely myth and history, reflecting differences between cultures that possess written sources and those that do not. Western European music history relies on fundamental historiographical metaphors developed in ancient Western European culture, such as the idea of beginnings and the concept of development. Source criticism, periodization, categories of genesis and change, cause-and-effect relationships, and biography form the methodological pillars of knowledge and description, which music history shares with general history. However, histories of various forms of art differ significantly from other historical disciplines because their subject matter is the work of art. The work of art, as the central object of interest, and the linear narrative describing the chronology of the creation and development process, define the methodological foundations of Western music historiography.
Mythical memory and the historical narratives derived from it, on the other hand, rely on association by analogy or metaphor. It emphasizes the analogy between certain events in the past and certain events in the present. In the absence of a written record, performance becomes the most perfect update of established and thus consecrated patterns, which are subject to control by current artistic practice. Each performance refers to the past and serves as a reference point for future performances.
The organizers propose the following topics for the conference:
- The position of music history within contemporary humanities and historical sciences. Methodological distinctiveness of music historiography.
- Major concepts in Western European music historiography: source, musical work, style, chronology and periodization, biography.
- The anthropologization of music history: expanding the scope of research, engagement with artistic practice, acceptance of new research strategies, interdisciplinarity, contextualization of research on musical works.
- Models of historiography outside Europe.
- The idea of global music history. Historiographical interpretation of the relationships between musical cultures on a global scale.
- Memory and compositional practices in postmodernism (including intertextualism, conceptualism, and postmodernism).
- Source studies: new discoveries, interpretations, editions.
- Memory as a mythologized history in oral musical cultures.
- Music history in school and university teaching.
The outlined areas do not preclude the submission of other proposals related to the main theme of the conference.
The organizers are expecting proposals for individual presentations (20 minutes), panel proposals with at least 3 speakers (60 minutes), and brief communication-style presentations (10 minutes).
Proposals should be submitted by April 30, 2025 to Temina Cadi Sulumuna at
The proposals will be reviewed and accepted by the Program Committee, consisting of: Aleksandra Bilińska, Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, Marta Dziewanowska-Pachowska, Iwona Lindstedt, Katarzyna Szymańska-Stułka, Sławomira Żerańska-Kominek.
In case of a large number of submissions, the committee reserves the right to make a selection based on the content.
The conference fee is 450 PLN (full amount) and 300 PLN for Polish Composers’ Union members. The fee includes VAT. Retired individuals and those without affiliation are exempt from the fee. The fee does not cover travel and accommodation costs.
Once the list of conference participants is announced, the organizers will send information regarding recommended hotels, including addresses and contact details.
Beata Bolesławska-Lewandowska, Chair of the Board of the Musicologists' Section of the Polish Composers' Union
Agnieszka Draus, Secretary of the Board of the Musicologists' Section of the Polish Composers' Union
Co-financed from the means of state budget of the Polish Republic, granted by Minister of Science RP within the framework of the "Doskonała nauka II" ["Excellent Science II"] government programme.
